Mie Frey Damgaard

Photographer: Nichon Glerum

MY DIGITAL BODY

Registration systems for individuals have grown tremendously
over the last 30 years, and privacy today is difficult to maintain.
Over two-thirds of the UK population no longer trust the
government with their personal data.
It will not be long before our physical bodies, our biometrics,
are registered and stored in databases. This phenomenon will
redefine the body as a series of digital codes that can be read
by a machine. It will generate a digital body will be generated
containing all of our personal data, which will make it even more
difficult to preserve our privacy and freedom.
We can maintain our freedom by unsealing our data and giving
up the illusion of privacy we have today. The transparency and
overflow of data will consequently create chaos. When everyone’s
data is freely available, our digital bodies will represent us.
I have designed a future scenario where the digital body,
containing all our personal data, merges with the physical body.
Coming full circle where personal data returns to the individual
and the physical body becomes a database for the digital body.
In my design I have worked on answering the problems of
accessing and maintaining an overview of the data in the digital
body; keeping the data up-to-date, creating hierarchy in the data,
and navigating it.